


An Open Letter to Gabriel and Standbyme

by make_your_user_a_name



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Destiel - Freeform, M/M, Not a fic, Supernatural - Freeform, Twist and Shout, just some thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:13:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24070378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/make_your_user_a_name/pseuds/make_your_user_a_name
Summary: Some thoughts as I lay sobbing over Twist and Shout. Come, suffer with me.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	An Open Letter to Gabriel and Standbyme

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gabriel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gabriel/gifts), [standbyme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/standbyme/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Twist and Shout](https://archiveofourown.org/works/537876) by [gabriel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gabriel/pseuds/gabriel), [standbyme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/standbyme/pseuds/standbyme). 



Dear Gabriel and Standbyme,

Twist and Shout. The mere mention leaves tears in its wake and broken hearts strewn across the floor. It’s a beautiful story and I can’t stop thinking about it. I may be around six years late to reading this, six years late to the heart-wrenching sobs, six years late to letting this story take over my entire mind, leaving me lying awake at three in the morning, unable to sleep. But six years later this fanfiction work continues to dominate the Supernatural fandom. 

It’s simply beautiful. It lacks the anachronisms and forced setting that many AU works do. It has clearly been researched painstakingly and the details fold seamlessly into the plot of the story. There is not one fact or one sentence that pulls the reader from the experience, and instead each fact and sentence drags the reader more deeply into 1960s and 1970s America. This story is amazing because it's real and it's raw. It happened to real people and destroyed real lives. And the stories of those caught in the Vietnam war and the AIDS panic deserve to be told and not buried by those in power like they are now. The dialogue in this story is simply impeccable. Each character finds a voice early on, and as the characters grow and change, so does their speech. Still, at the core of it all, a character’s virtues and values, their most inner desires and thoughts stay steady and are again and again revealed in their speech. It’s so sad. It’s so devastatingly sad. But it’s hopeful and light and inspiring. The structure is beautiful, the characterization is beautiful, and the story is hauntingly beautiful.

Which brings me to the crux of the matter. This work of fanfiction works beautifully in the fandom. It belongs here, it breathes here, and it fits these characters while making them something new. But it doesn’t rely on the fandom. This story has a life of its own, and I believe it should be allowed to live it. This story deserves to move the thousands and millions of people who aren’t part of our world. The people who have never heard of Jensen Ackles, never heard of Jared Padalecki, never heard of this crazy, totally-not-devil-worshipers fandom. This fandom that has become a living, breathing entity. A family. But this work doesn’t need that to tell a tragically beautiful story. Many published works started as fanfiction, the first one that comes to mind, unfortunately, being Fifty Shades of Gray. Regardless of that example (I’m sorry, it’s late and it came into my head), fanfiction absolutely has the ability to become an original work. With a few name changes from the most obviously Supernatural characters, light editing for the (very minor) grammar things, and some chapters (have 12 parts with four chapters each) this story could easily be a published work. Because you know what? At the end of the day we didn't love this because it was Dean and Cas. We loved it because it was your Dean and Cas. You made these characters your own. Even if no editors agree with that sentiment, there is always self-publishing (again, the aforementioned heinous example comes to mind).

I know. I know all I’ve done is read a work of fanfiction you wrote on the internet six years ago. I know I don’t know what your lives are like. Maybe you are published authors, maybe you have desk jobs, maybe you have moved away from the fandom and don’t want to get dragged back into it. I know that you likely won’t see this, if I were you I would have turned off AO3 notifications years ago. But I have to try. I have to try to reach you because this story deserves to be told. It deserves to reach those that haven’t read it yet. It deserves to have its own life, its own existence, outside of fandom. It can’t possibly hurt to try. For the sake of people out there who could be touched by it, who could be changed by it, as we have. This is one of the most life-changing things I’ve ever read, and of course I don’t think it a bad thing that it lives in fanfiction. I just think it could live beyond that, too. 

On the off chance that either of you sees this, thank you. Thank you for writing this, for pouring your souls into it, for being incredible writers. And please, please just consider this. 

See you then, 

A fan


End file.
